Page 52 of Huntress

“Good, we’re going to need her.” A wash of emotions swept over her before vanishing. Anger, and… Was that jealousy? Why? Because Morgan had touched her?

She and Morgan had accidentally touched skin to skin in a fight years ago. Elsie was in no danger of creating a mating bond with the sniper. She brushed her interpretation of the demon’s reaction off as an overactive imagination.

Elsie’s mind wandered as she stared into the flames shooting out of the hole that had claimed far too many victims. She explained what they’d encountered and why they were holding a funeral pyre now rather than waiting.

Light from the fire splashed across her face, flickering and catching the pale lavender of her eyes. She stared into the flames, pondering everything she’d seen and heard since they’d arrived.

The tunnels were obviously being used, but until this morning, she hadn’t spotted a single magical trail coming in or out of them. Rats weren’t powerful enough to conceal their magic. That meant something stronger was around, wiping away all traces of them, keeping them hidden.

But why? And who would be willing to cooperate? She couldn’t for the life of her remember any mention of a species known to work alongside rat demons. They tended to stick to their own.

Three children were dead, but the nest’s hunters were unaffected, and that bothered her. Franklin had proven himself useless, Jeshua secretive, and neither of them struck her as outstanding leaders capable of keeping their squad safe when a field squad had been annihilated.

“Where are their bodies…” she muttered. Mutt had taken to pacing, but he paused when he heard her question, catching her eye.

“What?” Grady asked.

“Roz’s report didn’t mention what happened to the bodies of the squad that came here before us, so we assumed they were missing. But we didn’t find their bones in the cave,” she said.

“If we’re operating under the assumption that there are a lot of them, we can also assume that they have more pits like this one,” Morgan said. Elsie nodded. It made sense, but it wasn’t quite right. She tended to listen when instinct started buzzing in her ear.

“There’s something off, but I can’t put my finger on it,” she said. Morgan and Grady both looked at her seriously. They trusted her instincts almost as much as she did.

Mutt raised his head and took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring wide, but he didn’t reveal what he’d scented. He slipped past the geographer and sniper, returning to Elsie’s side and lowering his mouth to her ear.

“You can’t outsmart a rat, or its keeper,” the demon said under his breath, far too quietly for Grady or Morgan to catch. Even she’d barely caught his words before he walked away, resuming his pacing. The wolfhound kept looking deeper into the woods.

He’d know more about rat demons than she did. He’d lived out among demon kind his entire life; it made sense that he’d have come across a pack or two.

Elsie turned to follow his gaze, unease prickling at her skin. The sensation of being watched crept over her, but not even the tiniest bit of magic tainted the air.

“What do you suggest, then?” Elsie asked, barely loud enough for her voice to cross the distance he’d put between them. She took slow, uneven steps toward him, too deep in contemplation to even realize it.

He glanced over at her, but didn’t answer. Not that she’d expected him to. He’d already made his stance on the subject clear. He wouldn’t help her hunt down other demons. Why the hint, then? Was he mocking her? Or maybe subtly informing her that they’d gone about this in all the wrong ways. What had she missed?

Elsie’s steps faltered, her mouth forming an ‘O’. She looked at the ground beneath her feet, then back toward the barrier, a little more than two miles behind them.

His single remark had things clicking together faster than she could process. Franklin’s resistance, the huge number of bones piled so close to the barrier without anyone noticing, the missing hunters, the missing kids, the lack of magical signatures inside the tunnels…

Click. The danger was within.

Elsie caught the demon’s eye, and he nodded, affirming her suspicions. She’d figured it out faster than he’d thought she would, but it was still too late. She’d made a potentially fatal mistake, and he’d stood by and let it happen. How long had he known? Raising the radio to her lips, she spoke quickly.

“Everyone back to the nest, now!”

She glared at the demon, then broke into a run. Morgan followed instantly. He’d spent too much time with Elsie to question her judgment.

One corner of the demon’s mouth quirked upward as he watched them go. Turning, he ran the other way, deeper into the woods. Elsie stumbled, having to adjust her stride to keep from falling. Seeing him running in the opposite direction felt deeply, intimately wrong. For one insane second, she jogged after him before fumbling to a stop.

“Mutt, wait!” she called out, brow furrowing with confusion and something dangerously close to betrayal. Elsie shook her head, trying to clear it.

He hated the hunters, and she couldn’t blame him for seizing the opportunity; this was as good a time as any for him to go for it. Her life would go back to normal, the angst and drama of her squad resolved. Mutt wasn’t her problem anymore. So…why did it hurt?

Unsure of what was happening, Grady had scrambled to catch up with her, only to be further confused when she stopped. “Captain?”

“We’ve been played,” Elsie said.

“I can see that,” Grady replied, following her line of sight in time to catch the demon disappearing into the trees. Elsie’s expression hardened.